New York / Chicago In Potential Crash Path Of Out Of Control Chinese Space Station

An out of control Chinese space station, Tiangong-1, is predicted to crash to Earth this April Fools weekend. The crash path, which includes major cities such as Boston and New York as well as Chicago is still highly uncertain.

The European Space Station's current model predicts the reentry window for the Chinese space station is between the morning of March 31st and the afternoon of April 1st (April Fools' Day). Thankfully, the space station will break up into tiny pieces upon re-entry, limiting potential danger to both people and infrastructure.

At this time the location of reentry is unclear, with experts predicting an impact anywhere between 43ºN and 43ºS and a small chance the station will break up over a populated city. However, the path does put at risk some of the world's largest cities, including Chicago, Toronto, Rome, Istanbul, and Beijing in addition to New York and Boston.

While it is possible that the space station will fall to Earth above a populated region, the Aerospace Corporation says there's no need to worry. The odds of being hit by falling debris is 1 million times less likely than winning the Powerball jackpot.

No one knows where #Tiangong1 will reenter, but we do know odds of it harming someone are vanishingly small. Our scientists calculate odds of you being hit by Tiangong-1 debris are ~1mil times smaller than odds of winning Powerball jackpot – even if you live in ‘high risk’ areas. pic.twitter.com/ic6hSl7WD6

The current location of the Tiangong-1 ("heavenly palace”) is just southeast of the African continent. For a real-time view of the space station location, Satview is a great resource.

Current location of the Chinese Tiangong-1 Space StationSatview.org

The 19,000-pound space station was decommissioned in 2016 after being in use for five years. The space station was then replaced with the Tiangong-2. China claims the space station is not out of their control and is planned to splash down in the Pacific Ocean. However, the European Space Agency believes it unlikely that the re-entry event is controlled. While there is no way to be completely certain, the ESA believes China's ground teams lost control of the space station and it will make an uncontrolled re-entry.

The majority of the space station's orbit puts it directly over the open ocean, the most likely location where the space station will impact Earth. To date, there have been no reported deaths from space objects falling to Earth. The only contact has been Lottie Williams who was brushed on the shoulder by a falling space object in 1997 and not injured.

I am a geologist passionate about sharing Earth's intricacies with you. I received my PhD from Duke University where I studied the geology and climate of the Amazon. I am the founder of Science Trends, a leading source of science news and analysis on everything from climate...